The Dream Master: A Short Story
by Nightmarica
Summary: BE prepared for a cliffhanger, and make whatever you want out of the end.


I stood onstage with my guitar hanging around my neck. The stares of all my classmates burned, or maybe it was just the spotlight. I had been preparing for this day my whole life, it was my time. I took a step towards the microphone in front of me and met the gaze of the crowd.

"One, two, Freddy's coming for you," I sang in my eerie impression of a child. I saw the eyes of the audience light up as they recognized it. Freddy was short for Freddy Krueger, a child molester and killer that had once lived in my house. Everyone thought I was a freak because of it, but I loved how they stayed away from me.

I started jamming my guitar rift and began to sing the song I had been practicing for a very long time.

"I'm sitting in a room all surrounded by big white walls and in the halls,

There's people looking through the window, in the door,

They know exactly what we're here for.

Don't look up just let them think

Of anyplace they'd rather be."

As I stood up there and jammed on my guitar and sang, the people in the audience just stared at me. I knew exactly what they were wondering; why had I started the song with the beginning of a nursery rhyme, especially that one? I honestly didn't know what I was doing at the time, but it came back to haunt me; I was spreading fear into the hearts of my fellow teenagers. Little did they know that soon enough, they'd be dropping like flies.

"You're always on display for others to watch and learn from,

Don't you know by now?

You can't turn back

Because this world is all you'll ever have."

It was apparent that my song had caught people off guard. I was only fourteen and I was singing about being locked up in an insane asylum. They didn't know what I had gone through or else they would have figured it out.

"It's obvious that you're dying, dying,

Just living proof that they're all lying.

They treat us like,

We're some kind of science experiment gone wrong.

If only they knew…"

I was singing about what my mother had gone through, she had gone crazy and killed herself with a razor, or so they told everyone.

"Every time I close my eyes,

There's a man waiting deep inside,

That shadow that waits for me to dream,

That's why I can't go to sleep!"

I played the sweet sounding outro very slow and whispered, "He's back." I unplugged my guitar and walked offstage, through the stunned crowd of people, and out into the cold night air with a big smile on my face.

I walked through the dark streets passing shadowy house after shadowy house until I finally was on Elm Street, my street. I stood for a moment outside my house admiring the white paint that never seemed to fade before walking through the red door and up the stairs that led to a hallway. I walked over to the first one on the left, which was my room, put my guitar on its stand and flopped on my bed staring at my 80's bands posters that were tacked to my ceiling.

I closed my eyes and tried to let everything slip away, make myself fall into dreamland. Then I felt everything around me grow cold. I opened my eyes and found myself standing in front of a light blue house with a white door and boarded up windows. It was in the middle of the night, but there were no stars in the background, only a water tower with Springwood on it.

I knew this house, I loved this house. I walked up the cement path that led straight up to the door and over the dead grass that served as its lawn. I gripped the doorknob in my grip and let the familiar cold envelope my body. I twisted it and pushed the door open, revealing the room inside. It was exactly how I left it.

A shattered chandelier hung from the ceiling spreading pale candlelight over the table it was above. The table was practically overflowing with every kind of food you could imagine, but that was not what I was here for.

I heard the door slam behind me and I smiled, that's what I was here for. I turned around, right into a man. His sweater was red and green striped and face was terribly burnt and scarred underneath his worn, brown fedora.

I smiled at him and he did the same. He raised his right hand, which was laden with a razor clawed glove, like he was going to stab me.

God, it was good to be home.

The End.


End file.
